Encryption

FaceTime and iMessage have a cryptographic architecture that enables prospective wiretapping, but there is reason to believe that Apple not is fully complying with lawful pen-register and trap-and-trace court orders.

Commercially available encryption products make use of a variety of verification systems for personal accounts, including biometric characteristics and more traditional passcodes. The Fifth Amendment may provide more protection to traditional passcodes than to biometrics, making it relatively easier for the government to compel the disclosure of biometric codes.

Recently I participated in a fascinating conference at Georgia Tech entitled “Surveillance, Privacy, and Data Across Borders: Trans-Atlantic Perspectives.” A range of experts grappled with the international aspects of an increasingly pressing question: how can we ensure that law enforcement is able to obtain enough information to do its job in the twenty-first century, while also ensuring that digital security and hu

Last week, co-authors Michèle Flournoy, Richard Fontaine, and I released a Center for a New American Security report on the future of surveillance policy. This post will examine what our approach can offer the new administration, given what its incoming members have said about surveillance issues and the commitments that the President-elect himself has made on the campaign trail.

If we fear abuse of law-enforcement powers under a Trump administration, that is reason to move towards the technically constrainable and enforceable transparency of split-key exceptional access mechanisms rather than towards the alternative of unconstrained, non-transparent capabilities such as device hacking.